I've tried to read it three or four times and never managed to get more than a chapter or so before putting it down. It was neither required nor "banned" when I was in school, so I never got to it there but in my mid-20s/early 30s I just couldn't see the point.
I like to imagine that Holden Caulfield was drafted to fight in the Korean War and got trampled during a banzai rush. The entire book is his deranged confession to his Communist captors.
Catcher is great! Captures that teenage alienation perfectly. Great way to get young people into reading. I understand not relating to it as an adult but it was one of the first books I really enjoyed reading and I know many others feel the same way.
I'm just having fun! I shouldn't deride it too much. It was okay. I just think that it accomplished in two pages what it kept doing for 200. It's kind of the Paris Hilton of literature, occupying a place that a greater talent deserves. She's an okay person, but she should be working at Taco Bell and wearing rubber sandals. The limelight needs to shine elsewhere. Geez, I'm deriding it again. Sorry. It was okay, like I said. Here's a long post of a book I loved! The "serious literature" book with a teen protagonist that I really, really liked was last year's Pulitzer. I've recommended this one before in various threads, but I don't think I've mentioned it directly. Colson Whitehead's "The Nickel Boys" is one of the best books I've ever read. Just a little background . . . Before I started this book, I didn't like Colson Whitehead in the slightest, and I dreaded picking this up. He won for "The Underground Railroad" a few years ago, and that book is terrible. It's basically about a slave girl who escapes from captivity. Her character arc is nonexistent. She wanders through unrelated scenes that are cobbled together with no relation. There is no plot. Now I read these kinds of books all the time. They're basically picaresques. In books of this style, the protagonist discovers the meaning of life while stumbling through it. The people he/she meets are archetypes meant for either him or the reader. The MC is either an unscrupulous anti-hero (Barry Lyndon, Ignatius Reilly, Perfume's Grenouille) or he is the ingenue (Candide, the Sot-Weed Factor's Ebenezer Cooke, Kidnapped's David Balfour, Huckleberry Finn). This MC is obviously the ingenue. Her arc is a shift from fear to hate. That's not inspiring in the slightest, and it should be. I look at the other Pulitzer slave stories I've read and they tower over this story. Beloved (☆☆☆☆☆) The Confessions of Nat Turner (☆☆☆ 1/2) Roots (☆☆☆☆ 1/2) (Roots got an honorary award from a year with no winner, so I consider it the true winner.) I give "The Underground Railroad" two stars. I kind of accepted the idea of a subway system ferrying escaped slaves to the north, and part of me respects the boldness of toying with history in that way, but it went on and on like this until there was nothing but anachronisms. In the end there was nothing I could trust. So the plot failed in the type of book where the plot should never fail. And the MC was insufferable. I was amazed that I felt nothing for her. I finished that book and felt awful because I wasn't allowed to relate. Two stars, like I said. This book made me angry at the wrong people. I wasn't happy when Whitehead won the Pulitzer again. His last two books both won. (Imagine that! Crazy.) But I had to read the newest winner and so I braced myself. Every single issue I had with Underground Railroad was erased. I couldn't believe it. I finished this book and I was stunned at what it had pulled off. I had no respect for this author and he completely won me over. The plot is absolutely there. The MC, an innocent who lives by the tenets of Martin Luther King Jr., aspires to attend college. This is in the 1960's, so you can imagine what he's up against. You're rooting for him. He's noble, but he has the flaw of misplaced trust. He struggles forward and then everything goes to hell. The writing is immaculate. Perfect sentence mechanics and styling. Imagery that is never cliche and is used at the exact instant that it's needed. The dialog is spot-on authentic. The setting is real. All the small pieces are in place around a story that leads to a place that I never saw coming. It hits like a bolt pistol, right between the eyes. I consider it a perfect book. I know these type of things are subjective, but to me, that's what it is. Beloved was always my high-water mark for books about the Black experience, but I think this one surpassed it. I still can't get my head around that. "Catcher in the Rye" should be dropped from school curricula and replaced with this. "The Nickel Boys" is a classic in the same way that "To Kill a Mockingbird" is a classic. It really is on that level of importance, and it's better written. (Sorry, old Lady Harper. I like Mockingbird, but it is.) My only warning is that it has a lot of language, about a hundred instances of I-think-you-know-what. Since Huckleberry Finn gets away with it, I guess this one can too, but be aware of what's written. That's the one thing holding it back as a book to give a class. I know I wouldn't want to read that aloud. Anyway, I hope setting expectations too high hasn't sabotaged a read for someone else. But IMO, this type of book is career defining. If you can pull this off once as an author, then your whole life was worth it. I just wish that whatever force decides that "this is a classic" would turn its eyes toward this title. Put it in the pantheon, because it should be there.
I'll have to check it out. I thoroughly enjoyed The Exorcist. Scary it was not, but what are you going to do? It's fifty years old. It was well-written though, and I liked the character of Kinderman, so that sounds like a book I'd like to read. The audiobook was narrated by Blatty himself, which was a special treat. He's a hell of a performer, turns out. Author-read books are not always what you want. I'm on The Wind Through the Keyhole by Stephen King right now. I enjoy when he reads a story or two in a collection, but compared to the first four books in The Dark Tower series, read by a seasoned, professional reader, the performance on this one is bland. Between these two, I finished The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. As a standalone, It was a good book. As a followup to The Handmaid's Tale, It fell flat. It's your basic adventure story. It's missing everything that makes The first book one of everyone's favorite novels. It's more a sequel to the TV show than the book, in fact. With the show still in progress, I wonder if it will all line up in the end. There were a few big twists involving characters key to the show. Supposedly they've been consulting Atwood all along, so maybe the two novels will bookend the series in the end. That would be nice. I hate when one medium kills the canon in a multi-media franchise. (Star Wars, I'm looking at you.)
I've just finished The Devil's Advocate by Morris West. Spoiler I must admit that even for me, who likes slow beginnings, the start was a bit difficult (I had to start twice). But the story of Giacomo Nerone really grabbed me, and while they were telling his story (and simultaneously their own), the other characters grew on me, too. The end leaves you with a bit of melancholy, though I wouldn't say it was an unhappy ending (except perhaps for Nicholas Black; I'm still not sure I liked the way the story treated him, actually I didn't , though it was a bit softened by the impression, that Meredith knows he is handling the situation wrong.).
Just re-read the short story that made me a fan of Kurt Vonnegut. I read it in high school in the seventies. It is an anti war story written in 1950, by a WWII vet. It is told against the background of a poignant love story. Now that I am much older and more mature, I appreciate it even more. EPICAC can be found in a collection published in 1969 called Welcome to the Monkey House.
Just finished The Bear by Andrew Krivak. Ive never cried during a book, but i cried multiple time during this short novel
KING OF KINGS by Wilbur Smith. As usual he grabs your attention from the opening paragraphs. PS: What is of interest is that this book was co-authored with Imogen Robertson.
I just started reading V. by Thomas Pynchon. The book can get confusing at times, and I've had to reread several passages to understand what's happening. But one thing's for sure: Pynchon is a darn good writer. I was surprised to learn that the book was published when he was in his 20s. I'm curious to hear what others think of the book or any of Pynchon's other books.
God help me, but I hate Booktube. They hype up these titles and I fall for it way too often. I mean, I want to read great books, and I know I can't guess them all on my own, so I depend on other people to find them. And then I copy them. This book was awful. (The Storied Life of AJ Fikry, for the day that the above image gets deleted.) It reads like a Hallmark Channel novelization. There is no tension. It's just the MC moving through his life, falling for a woman who inexplicably falls for him too, and then dying like a chump. I cannot believe it has a 4.00 on Goodreads. What are these people thinking? The setting was the empty stage. The dialog was implausible and forced. The scenes were trite. The characters were shallow. And the themes were so blandly 2020 that I'm sure they gave me covid. The book took no chances. It played it safe from beginning to end. I need something visceral. I want to see the characters breathe with their own life. I want to see the forbidden. It can be crass or rude or shameful or shocking, but it should be something. It should wallow in the muck and then claw its way out. That's what I want to read. I refuse to believe that people are vanilla beige nothing, so why write them that way? Here's my least favorite scene. I'm not kidding, I stopped reading to flip off my ebook with both hands. “I still love you,” X says. At that moment, headlights catch the rearview mirror. The hit comes from behind, knocking the car into the center of the road so that it is crossing both lanes of traffic. “I think I’m okay,” X says. “Are you okay?” “My leg,” she says. “It might be broken.” Are you kidding me! This is not a car accident! If they were sitting in a bumper car, I would expect more of a reaction. Somehow they kept their wits about them and responded with grade school grammar. Thank god I got this for free from the library. (return and delete) The only good part about all this is that now I'm going to read the five star reviews and marvel over them. I give this travesty 1 baby-on-the-doorstep out of 5. (If somebody leaves an orphan at your house, even if they attached a note, you don't get to keep it. There is no possible way this would happen.) ============================= This book, however, I liked lots. "Ghachar Ghochar" is about a family who has risen out of poverty. They are not necessarily nice people, but they do care for each other (though they don't always show it). They reminded me of the family in "Parasite," in some respects. You can see what holds them together and also what pushes them apart. This is a fairly short book, really a modest novella, and is written in the style of Chekhov, where the truths of the characters are discovered in simple occurrences. So you could say that it isn't plot driven, maybe . . . I don't want to spoil it. I'll just say it went from a 3 1/2 star book to a 4 1/2 because of a true stroke of authorial genius. There is a purpose to it all. I loved this minor character, Vincent, the waiter. He shows up and speaks to the MC in ways that seem almost transcendent, like he knows everything that's happening in the MC's life. The MC recognizes this and is in awe. Had Vincent taken on a grand name and grown a long shimmering beard, he’d have had lakhs of people falling at his feet. How different are the words of those exalted beings from his? Words after all are nothing by themselves. They burst into meaning only in the minds they’ve entered. If you think about it, even those held to be gods incarnate seldom speak of profound things. It’s their day-to-day utterances that are imbued with sublime meanings. And who’s to say the gods cannot take the form of a restaurant waiter when they choose to visit us? I'll give this 4 1/2 maraudering ants out of 5. (Ha! I just noticed that the cover blurb compares the author to Chekhov. I swear I never noticed that! I feel vindicated though.)
I've noticed that an improbable number of the books I look up on that site have a rating of 3.87 stars.
Never even heard of Booktube And that book title? Sounds completely made up. Ploughing my way through KSR's Red Mars. Sometimes it's very long winded.
Booktube is what all of these book reviewers on Youtube call themselves. There's good and bad about them. The bad . . . they seem very insular and tend to tread on eggshells. Most of their discussions skirt around whatever point they're trying to make, which I can understand if you're trying to not spoil a plot, but this is something else entirely. It's a political politeness that borders on fear. It's cliquish skittishness. I was listening to some girl the other day who was upset with "how a handicapped character was represented." She would never really say what the offense was though, not directly, because that would be another "offense." That kind of stuff bothers me. Language is the cornerstone of civilization. We can't regress from it. Say what you mean. Make your point with impact. (Also, these characters are not real. They are not moral ideals. Every story is built from lies.) What I respect about them is that they read a LOT. (I'm sure some of the WF lurkers do too.) I'm talking 10 or 12 novels a month. I usually get about 4 a month, maybe 7 if I'm pouring it on and the writing works for me. (Though sometimes I purposely slow down and double-read. There are rare books like that.) Anyhow, I respect their knowledge. I just wish they weren't so obsessed with group acceptance. Be honest and be yourself. Friends (and Youtube viewers) who dismiss you for that are not worth having.
Sounds like the whole area of online social networking to me. You might as well just say it, you are anyway just indirectly; be firm but polite. 10 novels a month is some serious reading (of course someone is going to tell me that isn't very much), I wouldn't even get your number done. Still wading my way through Red Mars after how long? lol Although to be fair I've never been a fast reader. I might look in on BT if I remember.
Yeah, it has all of the social networking downfalls. There are some real informed people there though. I'll give them that. Some of them are self-pub authors who are promoting themselves. I've looked up some of their titles on Amazon, just using the "read it now," and was surprised to find that they were pretty good. I can be a harsh critic, I know, and I was expecting an abomination of prose, but they did know their stuff. Credit where credit is due. I would pick up a title or two if my TBR list wasn't already stretched to the limit.
I typed "booktube" in YT and the first video was titled "why I left booktube" lol. I am not sure but the capture image of the video seems to point at drama. Social media surely engineers drama, like reality TV. Anyway, I didn't know it (pro book reviewer) was a thing, but it is nice to know a new way to learn about books to read, because with so many books published everyday it is hard sometimes to know what is out there worth reading. I would imagine that even if people want to be themselves, there is certain pressure to be able to increase views. That aside, I must admit I am always a bit suspicious of YT, there is way too much drama. However, there are also channels that seem people are genuinely doing their thing (different things), I like that and so I follow them.
Well, they sound like they know their stuff, at least you can give them that. TBR, is 'to be read'? I keep making the mistake (is it, a mistake?) of looking at promising new books and putting them in my cart, maybe I'll buy it later. Or a favourite author is being recommend by Kindle, special offer, do you want to buy for a £1. A pound! Of course I buy it, trouble is, when am I going to remember I have a book tonne of words to read already.
yep, TBR = to be read. Now I'm on to Updike's "Rabbit is Rich" and I can already tell you it's a 5 star book. Perfect dialog. Deeply flawed characters. Stuff I love! It takes place during the US stagflation years, and the setting is expertly realized. If there is an aspect of Updike's "Rabbit" books (there's four of them) that's intimidating, it's that the setting is elaborate. Some people hate that, I know. But when it's done with great skill, I don't have a problem with it. Now that I'm on vacation, I'm going to try to read 100 pages a day. Let's see if I can do it. (I'll be lucky to finish 50, haha!) You know, I always wonder at books like these that hit the opening pages perfectly. Just the first paragraph or two is usually enough to know that the story will hold. I think it has to do with the authentic authorial voice. It can sound many different ways, but you'll always recognize when it is (or isn't) there. I suppose you have to be in the target audience. Obviously this book can't possibly work for everyone. As a writer though, the trick is to get that authenticity into your own work. It's easier to say it than to do it.
